


staring on clouds with no view of below

by citadelofswords



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Everybody Lives, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Nightmares, Puppies, it's mostly fluff anyway, one day i will explore the dynamics of human/ai relationships, the eiffera is mostly mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 06:28:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7833862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/citadelofswords/pseuds/citadelofswords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For a second it was too dark and his hands were scrambling for purchase, and then he fell off the bed and hit the floor with a thump and remembered no, he wasn’t still in space. He was in his apartment. Gravity was real. Wolf 359 was a star far away that wouldn’t visibly turn blue for another three years or so, and he was alive. It had just been a nightmare. A nightmare about drowning in space, but a nightmare all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	staring on clouds with no view of below

**Author's Note:**

> Heeeeeeeeeey, look, I'm capable of something that isn't sad! Or. Uh. Isn't really sad. It's not that sad, okay, everyone made it this time! No bad endings here! 
> 
> Title from The Space by Marillion. These lovely folks (the characters, I mean) do not belong to me (though the puppy in my own creation and tbh I wish I had a puppy as adorable as this one).

Eiffel woke up in a cold sweat, the blankets tangled around his ankles, and panic stopping his breath from escaping his throat.

For a second it was too dark and his hands were scrambling for purchase, and then he fell off the bed and hit the floor with a thump and remembered no, he wasn’t still in space. He was in his apartment. Gravity was real. Wolf 359 was a star far away that wouldn’t visibly turn blue for another three years or so, and he was alive. It had just been a nightmare. A nightmare about drowning in space, but a nightmare all the same.

Ruefully, Eiffel clambered back up into the bed and fumbled for his phone. The harsh white glow showed that it was 4 am, which meant that only one person would still be awake if he called them.

There were three things he’d been told to do if he had a nightmare. The first was to call someone and have an inane conversation about something. The second was to write down what the nightmare was about (probably meant to narrow down the most traumatic parts of life in space, Eiffel still wasn’t sure). The third was to make a warm, non-coffee drink and drink it all. After that he could go back to sleep or not, it didn’t matter because that wasn’t one of the things prescribed by his therapist. Usually he went back to sleep.

Eiffel shoved the phone between his ear and his shoulder and slipped open his dream journal. According to the tally marks, he’d had the most nightmares about the six months he’d spent in and out of cryo, and he hadn’t had a dream about drowning in space in over three months. It was probably an improvement. It just made Eiffel not want to take a shower for like, three days, but he knew that was a stupid idea.

The number he called went to voicemail and Eiffel hung up, frowning. Normally Hera was up at this hour— well, she never really slept, but that was why she was the right person to call. Before he could think very much about what that meant, however, the phone vibrated in his hand, startling him. He swiped to answer without really looking at the name. “Hello?”

Someone on the other line took a deep breath. “Hey.”

Eiffel breathed out. “You remember that time we watched the Babadook and you were laughing the whole time?”

“I still can’t believe that movie scared you, Doug,” Minkowski’s voice held a tiny bit of a smile, but there was a tremor underneath it all. “It had the worst production value.”

“Hey, at least I mostly knew it wasn’t real.” Eiffel climbed out of bed and padded out of his room. “Can’t sleep again?”

There was a rustle like she was shaking her head. “Nah,” she said. “You?”

“Nightmares,” he replied. “About drowning in space. Remember when that was the worst thing that ever happened to me?”

“You mean besides being arrested?”

“Uh, yeah, kind of,” Eiffel said. “Let’s not talk about that though? Tonight?”

There was the sound of scratching, the skitch of nails across hardwood, and then his puppy burst out of the kitchen and leapt for him. “Whoa, hold on a sec, Commander, there’s a puppy about to—,”

For such a tiny thing, she hit him with a solid amount of force, knocking him backward. She climbed up his chest and licked his face all over, giving him happy yips in between every other puppy kiss. “Hey, Hera. Hey, girl. Okay, come here, snuggles with Doug time. No more kisses, Hera, come on girl!”

“You named your dog after your girlfriend?” Minkowski asked dryly, but the tremor was gone and she sounded like she was actually smiling now.

“I can actually cuddle with this one,” Eiffel retorted, grunting as he tried to heft himself off the floor. “To be fair, Hera did suggest it herself.”

“Did you call her?”

“Yeah, but she went straight to voicemail.”

“You didn’t fight, did you?”

Eiffel paused. “… I don’t think so?”

“You don’t sound so sure.” Now she was laughing a little. Eiffel would count it a success if at least one of them was feeling better after this whole ordeal.

“I don’t remember what we talked about the last time we talked.” Come to think of it, he couldn’t remember the last time he talked to her. “Ah, she might be mad at me?”

Minkowski sighed. Eiffel buried his face in Hera’s puppy fur. She licked his neck.

“You hungry?” she asked suddenly. Eiffel blinked.

“Uh, I could eat, but Lovelace asked if I could open up tomorrow since she’s not going to be back in til 11.”

“When did you fall asleep?”

Eiffel grimaced. The silence must have stretched longer than he thought, because Minkowski said, “We don’t have to.”

“No, I want to,” he said. “I haven’t seen you in a while.” _I miss you_ , he didn’t say. He hadn’t been aware that he was going to miss any of them until they were all suddenly not in close quarters anymore. Hell, sometimes he even missed Jacobi, and Jacobi was working across town and sometimes came in to his flowershop to yell obscenities at him in different languages. 

He was about to suggest they hit a Waffle House when he interrupted himself with a yawn. Minkowski laughed. “How about in the morning, Eiffel? Once Lovelace has come in and you can leave her with the shop?”

“Waffle House?”

“Someday you’ll get tired of there, but yes, wherever you want.”

“Sounds good,” Eiffel said, still yawning. “But hey, if I’m going to go back to sleep then you should also try to, okay?”

“Of course.”

“Good. G’night, Commander.”

“Good night, Eiffel.”

Eiffel put the phone on his counter and devoted all his attention to Hera while he brewed his hot chocolate. “Hey, baby,” he cooed at her. “Wanna sleep on the couch and wake up in time for the sunrise?”

Hera yipped happily. Eiffel draped her over one shoulder so her furiously wagging tail hit his cheek occasionally and poured the hot chocolate into the stupid Lord of the Rings mug Maxwell had gotten him for a birthday present. With his free hand, he grabbed his phone and tried to balance everything as he made his way to the couch.

When he woke up again an hour later, the mug was empty and Hera was asleep against his stomach, snuffling into the rolls there. Eiffel buried his fingers in her puppy fur and smiled.

Out his window, the sun was just peeking over the skyline, setting the sky ablaze in a wash of golds and pinks. Eiffel flicked open his phone’s camera app and tried to focus the image with hands still wobbly from sleep. He sent the sunrise straight to Hera’s phone mechanism, where she could summon it to her image gallery at will, and as an afterthought typed a _Good morning, Hera_ text _._

He was just about to leave to open up his little flower shop, the puppy Hera deposited in her crate when his phone alerted him to a new text— a sunset, all deep orange and pink, as the world’s cities stretched far below, just beginning to turn on their lights. There was the tiniest slice of a plane wing in the corner. Eiffel smiled.

_See you soon, Eiffel._

**Author's Note:**

> This fic contains, like, a fuckton of headcanons I hold near and dear to my heart, as well as hinting at some dynamics in my as of yet unwritten Jacobi bakery au, so, if you want to talk to me about that or anything else you read here, hmu [over on the Tumblr](http://citadelofswords.tumblr.com/ask).
> 
> Also, I've been wanting to write a fic about Eiffel going to Waffle House for like two weeks, so expect that at some point. I started it. It will happen.
> 
> #giveeiffelapuppy2k16


End file.
